LETTER: When should the city use a business zone?

Talk about it

To the Editor:

If my memory serves me correctly, as I was growing up in Mitchell during the 1940s and 1950s, we had two state highways merging within the boundaries of the city. The first was Highway 37 south from Huron through Mitchell’s Main Street to First Avenue. The second was Highway 16, running from Sioux Falls to Rapid City, entering Mitchell near the old country club golf course and proceeding west to Sanborn Street then south, meeting up with Havens Street, then west to the city limits.

With these two major highways intersecting, the truck traffic on First Street and Main Street was getting very heavy, so the city’s leaders decided to reroute traffic. First Street traffic went to Havens Street, then I-90, and Main’s to Sanborn Street and now the 37 bypass.

The questions in my mind:

1. Has the state rescinded the routes of 16 and 37, through the city, or are they still on the records as viable?

2. Does the city have, in the zoning codes, a provision for “Highway Business”?

3. If the state has not vacated the highway designation and if the city has a code for highway businesses, then I have one additional question.

Should not the City Council’s ruling on Arnie’s gas station — located at 1218 E. First Ave. (Highway 16) — of a liquor license use the Highway Business code rather than the residential code?

Tags: opinion, updates, letters, business, local, mitchell